


In Shadows Seen

by werpiper



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Assorted Sexual Acts, Complete, F/M, Foolin' Around in Treetops, Het and Slash, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Spiders, Star-lore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-14 12:41:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1266964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/werpiper/pseuds/werpiper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tauriel's heart, before the Dwarves came to Mirkwood, and after.  Lots of Legolas/Tauriel, bc the movie didn't do enough for me with that :)  </p>
<p>Started out as a standalone, my mind kept going...comments/crits desperately sought, as I don't think this is a popular subject and writing it's been lonely and rough.  May undergo further revision if/as I figure out how to write Elvish emotions better?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Spiders; Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tauriel and Legolas, some time before Thorin's Company came to Mirkwood.

The bowstring still sang its echo, but the arrow had struck home. The spider lurched three legs nearer, then cascaded over itself and collapsed. The mad clacking and chittering had ceased, and the grey-green wood was absolutely silent.

Tauriel held another arrow nocked and ready, and she turned in a circle, edgily alert. Legolas stepped wide around the fallen beast, watching the red light fading from its eyes. He left the body there, and set with a sword to hacking the thick web away from the trees, to free the leaves for sunlight. It was a long and arduous task, though before long Tauriel slung her bow behind and joined him with two knives. They released trapped prey -- squirrels in great numbers, and even a pard -- and when they found the nest, Tauriel methodically sliced the eggs apart, bisecting and beheading each embryonic arachnid. Legolas turned away, unable to watch, and climbed the tree. Even past the webs' reach he ascended, until he could see the sky.

For a moment he felt nothing but pure relief as the clean wind combed through his hair. The sun was as red as Tauriel's hair, and darkness would be on them soon. He looked at the stars, dim but twinkling by the setting sun, secure in their telling of the season and the hour. He wanted to call Tauriel to join him, but he felt a rattling shock resonate through the treetrunk, and came down.

Tauriel stood by the roots, and skewered on her knife was another spider, as long as Legolas' arm. "It came back to the eggs," she said.

Legolas nodded reluctantly; it was spiders' nature to guard their get, and he had been foolish to presume that the dam had been among their kill. "Thank you, captain," he said formally, as Tauriel cleaned black blood from her knife. Full dark had fallen, the canopy of trees and moss and spiders' runs nearly as dense as being below ground. Legolas thought it was oppressive, and his words seemed too poor to express real gratitude. "Come with me," he beckoned as she finished, and instead of returning to the Elvenking's Halls, he began again to climb the tree.

"Ai!" Tauriel, who had dwelt her whole life in Mirkwood, had rarely seen the stars in all their glory. She actually swayed on the high branch, and Legolas took her arm. She steadied immediately, but he drew her towards himself where he leaned at the topmost extension of the trunk. They settled together, her back against his chest, a warm and comfortable weight. The top of her head reached to just below his chin, and the wind stroked her hair back against his neck.

"Elbereth Tintalle made them," he began, "and they were the first light seen by our people's eyes. So we are the Eldar, the people of the stars."

He felt Tauriel's heart beat faster, and wound an arm securely around her waist, delighting in her delight. "That is Menelmacar," he said to her, pointing to a group of stars that, as he explained, resembled a warrior wearing a sword-belt and carrying a bow, "and that is the Valacirca, sickle of the Valar, and points the way North. That arch of seven are the Crown of Durin, by which Tintalle told the father of the Foster-children where to build his city."

The whole night they spent there, enfolded together in the highest arms of the tree, and in one another's arms as well. Sometimes Legolas spoke of star-lore, as the lights wheeled above them in the firmament; sometimes they were quiet, listening to each others' breath and the night wind through the canopy of leaves. A little after midnight, the sky clouded over and it began to rain. Tauriel tipped her head back, letting the clean water spatter over her face. Legolas watched her, shining a little like a star herself in the darkness. At length, he leaned forward a little and tasted the rainwater where it had collected in the hollow between her closed eye and her cheekbone. She murmured, pressing into him, so it was almost a kiss, and she gripped his wrist with bow-pulling strength.

They folded together, like the petals of a flower before blossoming, and the lengths of their bodies were warm in the long cool night. When the sky cleared Legolas raised his face from Tauriel's, and seeing the morning star, he whispered in her ear:

_The leaves were long, the grass was green,_  
 _The hemlock-umbels tall and fair,_  
 _And in the glade a light was seen_  
 _Of stars in shadow shimmering._  
 _Tinúviel was dancing there_  
 _To music of a pipe unseen,_  
 _And light of stars was in her hair,_  
 _And in her raiment glimmering._  


Tauriel opened her eyes and they watched the sun rise as he recited. When he finished she turned in his arms, and for a long moment they held each other close. The birds began their singing in the treetops, and Legolas gently took his captain's hand, and began to lead her down and home. They had much of evil to report to his lord father, but in his heart, he felt something a little closer to hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't really buy L/T from the movie, but I like both characters enough to want to explore their feels in my own fic....


	2. Wishes; Wine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A prince, a captain, and a king respond to the shadows extending across Mirkwood.

Tauriel found the machete a graceless instrument, but it worked as the weapons-master had described; a vastly more efficient tool for clearing spiderweb than knives or swords. As captain, she ordered them distributed throughout the Guard, and scheduled patrols to clear necessary routes: to places where food was gathered, to the watch-trees, and along the River Celduin towards the Long Lake. Each group of guards was further armed with spears against the spiders themselves, and travelled with messenger-birds with which to call for reinforcements. Bands of Orcs were spotted to the south, and Legolas led those hunts himself, returning with bad news and black blood.

Thranduil set woodworkers and silversmiths to crafting articles for trade, opening the Dorwinion route for food and other necessities as well as the traditional wines. By day he paced his stone halls, and late at night he considered each individual he ruled and where exactly they ought to be. He lay in siege-supplies of medications and weaponry, and ordered the gates reinforced, and commanded that no one step outside the caverns unarmed. The King's mood stole like a shadow over his kingdom; every elf in Mirkwood felt the threat.

The only escape from the grimness seemed to be above the forest, in the sky full of stars. Somehow "the tree" in which Legolas and Tauriel had spent a night became "their tree" -- one would find themselves climbing the tall copper beech, and might or might not find the other waiting there. At first they met irregularly, and fell back into formal words and silences. Then they both arrived just at midnight on the night of spring's first meteor shower. Legolas had brought wine, and Tauriel a woven hammock. Their eyes met, and then they laughed and climbed together, agreeing to share.

"What did you wish for?" Legolas asked, when they had set their blades aside and settled together, and saw the first falling star blaze across the sky.

"An end to the spiders." Tauriel spoke with force. "I could wish that on every starfall! Though better that I sharpen my machete." She moved restlessly and added, "And you?"

"On every starfall," said Legolas in measured tones, watching the sky, "I would wish for yours to come true."

Anywhere else, Tauriel might have shrugged and turned away. But caught like a butterfly in the net of the hammock, she felt Legolas warm and solid at her side, and knew he did not mock her. "Also the orcs," she added, when another light flared and faded on the firmament.

"And the red rot on maples, and the grey rot on oak-leaves," said Legolas, "and whatever left that six-clawed mark by the standing stone," as three meteors passed together.

Tauriel took the wineskin, drinking deep. "Whatever left that mark," she said, after swallowing, "I swear by these stars I will kill it."

She felt Legolas nod. "We can track it after dawn."

I can't, she thought. I have to report to Thranduil at dawn. But she did not say so, taking instead another draught of wine, and leaning back against Legolas with her eyes on the sky. "I wish for honeysuckle already in bloom," she said. She was trying to be trivial, but as she spoke she realized she really did want that.

"For beauty," said Legolas, "for sweetness..." He threaded a hand into Tauriel's hair, drawing her closer. She sighed, relaxing, as his soft voice made these things seem possible. His heartbeat drummed steadily in her ear, a counterpoint to the wind sighing in the leaves and the notes of the nightjar and the owl. She watched the meteors streak through the sky, and could not wish for another thing.

She woke suddenly, in the silver dim before dawn. She was half-sprawled across Legolas, one leg thrown over his thigh, one arm up around his shoulders. In the thin wind and morning dew she felt warmer and more comfortable than she had ever imagined. She looked up to study the planes of his face and found his eyes open, watching her, the same dim silver-blue as the sky. Beneath her cheek, his heart skipped a beat. Gently and deliberately, they pulled together into a kiss.

His mouth was cool and sweet, still tasting faintly of Dorwinion wine. She shifted to lie entirely upon him, the length of his body lithe and hard, and his heart skipped again when she settled her weight on the hardest ridge directly at his center. His arms came around her, and he murmured her name like a question: "Tauriel?"

"Yes," she said clearly, then breathlessly added, "Legolas...." as his hands drew down to her hips. He rocked up against her, setting the hammock swaying; she felt a thin branch slide across her back. Her mind seemed clearer, her senses sharper, after weeks or months or years enwrapped in spiderwebs. This felt clean and bright and so, so good. Tauriel moved too, seizing Legolas's shoulders for leverage and balance, arching back a little so she could watch his face. 

When they had found a rhythm together, he slipped one hand between them, stroking first her neck and then her breasts. His other hand moved down to her hip, then spread across her ass, one long finger pressing through her clothing to her cleft. Tauriel moaned and Legolas's breathing grew ragged, and he gripped her harder, so she felt the scrape of his fingernails across her nipple. At that she cried out sharply, then fell forwards; Legolas buried his face in her hair as he followed.

Around them, the birds had taken up the dawn chorus. The Elves lay together entwined as their breathing slowed. Legolas pushed Tauriel's hair back from their faces and kissed her cheek, almost shyly. Sunlight glinted through the strands, lighting chestnut to fire.

She stroked a finger from the tip of his ear to his chin, then sat up, eyes narrowing at the sun. "Come," she said, taking Legolas by the hand, "let us track that six-clawed creature, and kill it today. I will be late in reporting to your lord father, but I would not arrive empty-handed."

Legolas almost sighed, then nodded, and accepted the machete she handed him. They left the hammock in the treetop, swinging in the morning breeze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Evil had established a stronghold in southern Mirkwood; the Elves held out further north. Thranduil's experience has prepared him for embattlement and survival. Tauriel will not settle for that.
> 
> I think Elves can see the stars even by daylight; this gives them a great sense of direction, location, and time.


	3. Rain; Roads

It rained every day that summer. Mirkwood steamed, and mosses and molds grew thick. The caverns of the Halls were a cool respite for most of the Wood-elves, but two still retreated to the soft night winds at the top of their tree.

On a full-moon night, Tauriel climbed the copper beech to find Legolas already in the hammock, stripped of his weapons and his clothes. The sky had started to clear, and the white light glinted where his skin was still wet. He raised a wineskin and asked, "How went your night's rounds?"

She handed him a small basket of golden cherries and began to unlace her boots. "Quiet for once," she said, "though the stones on the Path are slick and breaking. We will have no north road if your father sees not fit to repair it." She pulled off a boot, frowned at the sole, and rolled off her damp leggings. Legolas unbuckled her scabbards and quiver and hung them by the tree-trunk, and soon she lay naked by his side, sighing with ease and sipping the wine. "Not," she added, "that it sees many travelers in these years."

"Mithrandir, sometimes," said Legolas, "though the wizard may have little need of roads." She nodded; she found the Grey Walker uncanny, though she knew Legolas considered him a friend. "Tauriel," he said at length, "have you given thought to bearing children?"

"My lord," she said, as she had not in many months. Could he be asking that they marry? "I... of course I have. Children are a blessing and a joy; who could not love our Caiwen -- I am making her a set of little arrows for midsummer, when she will be six." She took a deep breath. "But this is not a blessed time. I give more thought each day to taking the lives of creatures who threaten us, than to creating life anew. I would die to protect Caiwen, as I would die to protect any in our kingdom. I think that the best use for me."

Beside her Legolas sighed, and his arm tightened around Tauriel's shoulders. "You guard us well, Captain," he said, making her title a play after his own, and she kissed his hand.

"Wouldn't you seek a Sindarin bride?" she asked. "A lady of the house of Fëanor, as golden as yourself?" She was thinking of Thranduil.

Legolas gave her a long look, then deliberately lifted a handful of her hair, stroking it across his face and kissing it. "Fëanor's firstborn had hair like yours," he reminded her. "But I think it foolish to judge by color or lineage what should be measured by the heart's love." He peered at her, blue-grey eyes surrounded by her own coppery locks. "And I do love you well, my captain."

"As I love you, my lord," she said seriously. "But I would that Caiwen were already grown, and her bow of a strength to kill spiders."

Legolas nodded. "If I had my wish," a word that still meant much between them, "she would live in a forest free of such evils, and take up her bow only as she wished to eat meat. Meanwhile, you and I -- we will strive to create that world, and take what pleasure we can in this one, yes?"

"Yes," said Tauriel, and as Legolas kissed her again, "yes." "Yes" as he stroked her, "yes," as he covered her body with his, "yes" and "yes" and "yes" until she had no more words for her joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tauriel knows what Legolas thinks because they've talked about it. She knows what Thranduil thinks because he's made it obvious how he likes being Sindarin and not Silvan. And I think she words herself very carefully.
> 
> JRRT was clear that among Elves, marriage and childbearing (and sex, by which I presume he means the reproductive sort) are pretty much the same thing.


	4. Defilement; Dwarves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Orcs and Dwarves on Tauriel's watch.

Nine days after Midsummer, a patrol found Hallothon's broken body to the south. His weapons were gone, his clothing ripped apart, and his remains streaked over in thick grey slime. His gathering-basket of herbs was beside him, half-full.

Thranduil cleansed the corpse and buried it, and all of Mirkwood sang in memory, Caiwen's voice piping thin as she learned the words of grief. The king redoubled his cautions: no elves were to walk in the forest alone, nor go south in groups less than twelve, and never further than a single day's run.

Legolas came to Tauriel's chamber that night. "I would ask you a favor," he said, voice trembling.

She put her arms around him. "Anything, my dearest friend." But Legolas took a deep breath and pulled back, looking her in the eyes. 

"Do you know Elladan, of Rivendell?" She shook her head. "He is my friend, and dearly beloved, as you are to me. We held each other as men do. Would you --" his voice broke, "touch me as he did?"

"I will," she said, "though you will have to show me what you mean, and given I am a woman and an Elf."

"It need not be a defilement," Legolas's tone became defensive, and suddenly Tauriel realized a little more of what had been done to Hallothon.

"Nothing between us could be," she said gently. "Show me what you wish?"

It struck her, afterwards, as a complicated business, what with the oil and the slow progression from tongues to fingers to anything larger. At the time, she was too engaged to care. It was another new pleasure in her own body, and a newer kind when she entered Legolas, curling her fingers and then her whole hand, finding his feelings and reveling in them. She had never seen him so unguarded as when he came that way, his back arching and released like a bowshot, never felt more fiercely protective of his joy.

"Was it like enough?" she asked afterwards, adding, "since I am not Elladan, nor can much resemble him."

Legolas kissed her deeply. "Tauriel," he said, her name a caress, "I am blessed that you are yourself in every way."

The next day her patrol ranged west, and found unexpected travelers on the remains of the northern road. They were having a difficult time of it indeed; they lost the road repeatedly, and wandered as if half-blind and half-mad. But some deep determination seemed to drive them, and they walked on and on, eating a sort of waybread and drinking from skins they had brought. They numbered fourteen; Tauriel recognized thirteen as Dwarves, and could not account for the last, who was no taller than Caiwen but carried himself like a tiny, beardless, but full-grown Man, on huge bare hairy feet. In particular, she thought she recognized old king Thrór -- but it could hardly be him; Dwarves were mortal, and it had been some years since they fled Erebor. She left three Elves to guard and watch them, and reported to the king.

Thranduil guessed that the Dwarf of kingly mien would be Thrain or Thorin, son and grandson of the old king, or perhaps another heir. "They are short-lived, short-sighted creatures, and mad for gold and crafted things." Thranduil spoke bitterly. "Do you remember...?" Tauriel nodded. She had been a scout in the army that rode to Erebor, and seen the dragon triumphant in the burning sky. Their king had indeed demanded gold, along with armies, and refused both healing and shelter. In the end the Elves had withdrawn, and only guarded the staggering remains of the population as they passed through the Greenwood, felling trees and frightening animals. "It may be that they have joined with the Shadow now. Captain, have them watched, and if they do any harm, capture them and bring them here."

If the band was protected by evil, it seemed to be helping them very little. The largest Dwarf -- by far the thickest creature Tauriel had ever seen -- fell into the water in a dreaming-creek, and slept like the dead, though his companions carried his torpid body along, working four at a time. They were beset by giant spiders, but by some cleverness the smallest escaped and freed his fellows, and once they nearly stumbled across Legolas and a hunting-party, but the Elves left quickly and the Dwarves were none the wiser.

Tauriel and Thranduil argued after that. The king, and Legolas as well, thought that if the Dwarves could not survive the forest on their own, they should be left to die. Tauriel was infuriated; there was a road, and free people should travel safely on it, or what good was their kingdom in Middle-Earth? On the sixteenth day of their slow progression, they were attacked again by spiders, and Tauriel commanded her group to save them and take them to the Halls.

Legolas was among them, and the first Elf to reach the travelers, with a nocked arrow and a threat. Tauriel was behind, battling spiders, and a Dwarf-archer called out to her for a dagger. But the meeting was already tense; more weapons would only make matters worse. She killed that spider herself, and they took thirteen Dwarves prisoner -- the Man-creature had disappeared, and Tauriel silently wished him luck. She took the archer's little bow herself; it reminded her of Caiwen's.

That Dwarf, dark-haired with bright metal decorations instead of braids, seemed somehow to retain a relative cheer, even as the Elves continued to disarm them as they marched the short distance to the Halls, and at Thranduil's standing command, locked them separately into cells. As she put him at his, he turned to her and asked straight-faced, "Aren't you going to search me? I could have anything down my trousers."

As if Tauriel had not been watching them for days, and had not seen him with his trousers around his ankles already. "Or nothing," she replied, trying not to laugh.

He was a prisoner; she should treat him formally, but how could she when he said things like that? Most of the Dwarves were poor enough company, as might have been expected. Their King -- it was Thorin after all -- quarreled mightily with Thranduil; his old dragon-scars became visible again in his fury, and they pained all the Elves to see. But the dark-haired one -- she learned he was called Kili, brother of Fili with the golden hair, Thorin's sister-son -- kept his good humor somehow. He actually teased her with fanciful Dwarvish rune-curses, and talked about his mother, and a fire-moon he had seen near Ered Luin. She tried to tell him about starlight. She felt Legolas's eyes upon her as they spoke, and did not mention trees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, Kili's here!


	5. Chase; Choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's the opposite of Stockholm Syndrome?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is playing through movie-time, which I'm not sure works so well. Sorry, y'all.

Tauriel liked to watch him.

Kili was never still. He played with his runestone, or finger-combed his hair, or stood on his hands (to keep his arms strong for archery, he said). He whistled, sang, recited -- long poems in Khuzdul when he thought he was alone; silly or salacious songs in Westron when he knew Tauriel was in earshot. His sleep was light and restless, and in dreams he would murmur his brother's name.

Tauriel walked the dungeons twice a day, before and after her guardian rounds. The other Dwarves varied in their demeanors. Thorin sulked. Bombur dreamed. Ori tried to puzzle out Sindarin. Dori endlessly rebraided his hair. Nori and Dwalin looked like they were planning murder. None of them smiled, or sang, or told tales, though once Fili made a valiant attempt at boastful threats, which she ignored.

The Elves were not much happier being jailers. Thranduil's scars still showed, and he pronounced Thorin as mad as his grandfather, bound to rouse the slumbering dragon and bring it down on all their heads. The cook grumbled "What do they eat? Stones?" as plate after plate of wholesome food was received with snarls and choking sounds. Legolas expressed regret at having rescued the travelers from spiders; better, he said, to have let their own folly destroy them.

"Better we kept the road safe," Tauriel snapped. A hundred years before, there would have been no giant spiders; fifty years before the road-stones had been sound. "When did you last ride to Rivendell?" Legolas looked at her and Tauriel's hand flew to her mouth. She had not meant to poke him about Elladan. 

"My father does not like us to travel," said Legolas, and Tauriel snorted; it was true.

"He'd keep us all in the caverns day and night, if he could," she said savagely. It had been a long year since she had ridden from the forest herself, before she became Captain, before the wood had become so fell. It was not Legolas's fault, or even Thranduil's. "We should be doing more. Outside..." her voice trailed off. She felt suffocated by spiderwebs and stone.

"Outside," Legolas agreed. They spent more and more time in their tree after that, and Legolas did tell her about Rivendell, and the passes through the Misty Mountains, and Lothlórien. Tauriel felt a great desire to go there, or anywhere, but still each day was spent clearing webs and slaughtering spiders and walking among prison cells. And Kili talked about the Blue Mountains, and Ered Luin.

When the prisoners escaped, Tauriel was glad, and then fiercely joyous as she slew Orcs along the river with Legolas at her back. When Legolas stopped her, insisting that they return with a prisoner, she obeyed. But her eyes followed the Dwarves bobbing away down the river, and she looked long after Kili. He was wounded, but she liked seeing him in sunlight and open air, and thought she might be gladdest to see him go.

"You love him," said Legolas, his voice strangely high and clear. 

Tauriel faced him over the bound body of the Orc. "Do I? I want him to live."

Legolas was pale, and biting his lip, but he nodded. "I think so. You'll find out."

"I love you," she started, but he cut her off. "I love you too. And I love Elladan, and my father. And as we both love the light, we should take this shadow-creature back, and discover its plans."

She attended the Orc's questioning, her sword aching for use in her hands. When Thranduil told her to go, she went swiftly, and did not stop until she reached the Long Lake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok, enough! 
> 
> since i am apparently unable to think discontinuously, this tale more or less picks up again in my already-written series here: http://archiveofourown.org/series/70145 KIRIEL (for M-E values of) 4EVA.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Thranduil: Legolas said you fought well today. He's grown very fond of you._  
>  _Tauriel: I assure you, my Lord, Legolas thinks of me as not more than a captain of the guard._  
>  _Thranduil: Perhaps he did once. Now I'm not so sure._  
>  _Tauriel: I do not think that you would allow your son to pledge himself to a lowly Silvan elf._  
>  _Thranduil: No... You are right, I would not. Still, he cares about you. Do not give him hope where there is none._  
>   
> 
> I don't think these are at all incompatible. I don't really buy L/T from the movie, but I love both the characters enough to want to give them some feelings in my fic!


End file.
